>AC>The following, ripped off from
>>http://baretta.calpoly.edu/cano/bact-article.html
>>suggests a bacterium could survive for 135 million years without damage.
>>What happened to the laws of chemistry and physics?
The laws of chemistry and physics say that everything tends to decay, but
they say nothing about the rate at which the decay occurs. For example,
thermodynamics tells us that the reaction between hydrogen and oxygen is a
spontaneous process, but you could fill a balloon with hydrogen and oxygen
and wait a million years and never see any water form. The reaction is
spontaneous, but slow (except of course if you add a catalyst or a spark,
both of which speed up the reaction and provide you with a rather large
explosion i.e. Challenger).
>It does seem hard to believe that complex biological molecules could
>retain their organisation for 135 MY. One must suspect contamination.
It is this very reason why it took Cano so long to publish. Apparently
others had claimed to have revived old bacteria but they had trouble proving
that the growth was real and not due to contamination. It is my
understanding that Cano's discoveries are nearly 10 years old and that he
has spent the last 10 years accumulating evidence that the growth that he
sees is not due to contamination.
Steve